Files

Accessing Files from Home

This short video explains what the different university file stores are used for.

Files stored on Office 365 can be accessed from home. Files stored on your campus computer or campus local network drive can not. To access your Office 365 account go to https://www.office.com and login with your university email address and password.

office.com homepage

Files in Teams or on Sharepoint?

Teams used for teaching

Creating and storing files in Teams is good for collaborating with students and for teaching. See the information on editing files in Teams.

Teams used for meeting colleagues

If your team or group already uses a Sharepoint Online, Sharepoint MyDepartment or staffcentral site to store and share files, then this is the best place to store files, to avoid duplication and confusion for team members, and to minimise the risk of inadvertantly sharing data. The Files tab in MS Teams is not linked to any existing staff SharePoint document libraries.

It is simple to share and collaborate on files stored in SharePoint whilst on a Teams call, and this short video demo of how to share SharePoint files when on an MS Teams call shows you how. Sharing files in this way does not change the access permissions for files stored in SharePoint.

It is also possible to add a SharePoint Online document library tab to your Team, to encourage team members to use that file store. Adding the tab does not change the access permissions for any of the files stored in SharePoint. It is easy to change permissions on SharePoint Online document libraries to grant access permissions to more people, if members of your Team need it. This includes granting access to external partners. See our SharePoint Online pages for information about working with documents on SharePoint Online.

The file store on Teams can still be used for temporary collaboration on documents during meetings, but we recommend that you move your files over to the correct SharePoint file store afterwards. With this in mind it may be easier to start your file in SharePoint to avoid having to do this.

If you are responsible for a formal university committee, there is more specific guidance – please Check the Academic Services Virtual Committee guidance.

Editing files in Teams

There are a few different options for editing your files from Microsoft Teams.To see these:

hover over the name of a file in MS Teams,
click on the … at the right hand side of the screen to see the otions:
- Edit in Teams will open the file within Teams.
- Open in Browser will open the file in the online application (e.g. Word Online) in a different window . This is good for collaborating in real time with others on a call.
- Open in App will open the file in the desktop application (e.g. desktop version of Word, if it is installed on that machine) in a different window. This option will give you the full app functionality, but is not recommened for real-time collaboration, as others will only see your changes when you and they save the file.

Adding a SharePoint tab to your Teams area

Watch this video to see how to link to your SharePoint document libraries from Microsoft Teams.

Connecting to a SharePoint Online document library

If your team has more than one channel, click on the channel you want to use (otherwise click to select the General channel).
At the top of the Teams window, click on the + icon.
Click on the Document Library icon
Click on Relevant sites. Your SharePoint Online sites should be listed. Click on the site where your document library lives, then click Next.
Click to select the document library that you want to link to, then click Next.
Rename the tab so that your team can clearly identify which tab is their SharePoint Online document library (e.g. Team docs on SharePoint)
Click Save.

If your team has several document libraries on a SharePoint Online site, it may be better to link to the site instead of the document library. To do this, follow the steps above but in step 3 click on the SharePoint icon instead of the Document Library icon.

Connecting to a SharePoint My Department document library

If your team has more than one channel, click on the channel you want to use (otherwise click to select the General channel).
At the top of the Teams window, click on the + icon.
Click on the Website icon.
In browser window, navigate to your SharePoint My Department document library and copy the URL.
Switch back to Microsoft Teams.
In the Tab name box, type a name so that your team can clearly identify which tab in Microsoft Teams is their SharePoint My Department document library (e.g. Team docs on SharePoint)
In the URL box, paste the URL of your SharePoint My Department document library (which you copied in step 4)
Click Save.